Helper rebuild draws near as first bids opened, UDOT may cede Main Street soon

Condie Construction of Springville is the apparent low bidder for the first phase of Helper's infrastructure rebuild. The firm submitted a bid of $4.7 million to handle reconstruction of water, sewer and storm drainage in Area One, which is basically downtown Helper east of US-6 except for Main Street. Work is scheduled to begin on April 1, according to Chad Brown, staff engineer with Franson Civil Engineers.

A pre-bid briefing for Area Four west of the highway was held Thursday and bids are to be opened on March 21 at 2 p.m.

Prospective bidders for Area Four have been made aware that they will be working on a tight schedule. The construction "window" will essentially begin and end with Helper Junior High School's summer vacation because the school and its access routes are in that zone.

In a related development, Brown said that the Utah Department of Transportation is close to turning over Historic Main Street to the city. Main Street is still considered a state highway, even though the vast majority of traffic now flows over the city on the four-lane US-6 overpass. The section to be ceded to Helper runs from the north interchange to Poplar Street.

The state will retain the old highway south of Poplar and through Spring Glen.

UDOT will probably pay Helper $750,000 to take over the street. The reason, the engineer explained, is that Main Street would have to be rebuilt by whoever owns the street after the infrastructure improvements anyway. There is already legislation in place for UDOT to divest its ownership of municipal streets where there is a mutual interest in the transfer.